Finished day one with 90 points as well.
Prologue: I never understood what the guy calling the woman and child is saying, and I still don’t. The whole sequence is very atmospheric and really sets the mood, even though its meaning will only become clear much later. I also like how (watch out, very heavy spoiler here!)
Spoiler:the door that guy locks turns out to be the dungeon of the Rittersberg town hall.
The only thing that bothered me about it is one shot of a white tower-like building with the flames in front of it. It looks like obvious artwork instead of a real location.
In fact, I've noticed that several inventory objects are obvious drawings as well, where they don't even bother to make them look real. Like the talisman. With other items it's hard to discern whether they're artwork as well or actual photographs of real objects.
Opening movie: the introduction of the new Gabe. When it comes to physical appearance, I think Dean Erickson fits the bill. His voice is another matter, though. I’ve tried paying attention to his comments and content-wise, it’s very reminiscent of the “Sins of the Fathers” Gabriel. Only Tim Curry could sound very sarcastic, and it seems Erickson’s voice is too “soft” to pull that off. His remarks just don’t carry the same weight or the correct intonation. I don’t know, this is hard to explain since it’s more of a feeling than actual facts, so I hope you can understand what I mean.
And the Oscar for most pouty facial expression goes to … Wesley Mann! (Sepp Huber). I thought it was funny to see this actor here, totally unexpected. I remember seeing him often as waiter or butler or something like that in several movies and TV shows.
Most famous voice … Kay Kuter! This actor has a very impressive filmography, and he has voiced characters in “Grim Fandango” and “Curse of Monkey Island”.
The actual gameplay begins. I’m reading comments of bad movie quality, not enough hotspots … I say: meh. I remember I was totally ecstatic to actually see real video on my computer back when I first played this game, the quality never really bothered me and still doesn’t. The amount of hotspots: same thing. Yeah, it’s fun to have a lot of things to examine and hear comments about. I call this game time-efficient: ideal for people who play games on a more occassional basis and often take weeks (sometimes even months) of real time to finish one. I think there are still enough extra little things to examine in the game and I never felt myself wanting more.
Cue the dramatic violins whenever Gabriel discovers something interesting.
Something that struck me when I started playing was how silent the Huber farm actually is, with only that ticking clock. I’m missing some background music. Of course, with constant music, those violins wouldn’t sound as dramatic. And I noticed that, whenever they do add some music, the voices are very hard to discern.
Another thing about Gabriel’s comments: sometimes the quality is so bad it sounds like lines he phoned in afterwards. He sounds very muffled.
I liked how
Spoiler:collecting the wolf hair is similar to collecting the snake scales in "Sins".
The tour of Munich. A bunch of fantastic extras in this game. The police officer is brilliant. I understand a bit of German so I never had a problem with his speech, although I did miss that “Liebe” facial expression up till now.
The prize for most bug-eyed expression: Gil Neuman as Thomas the zoo keeper. Talk about over acting … Did you know he’s actually listed as assistant director as well?
Something I’ve always wondered about. When
Spoiler:they’re with the wolves, one of them starts barking and growling at them. But the wolf is shown as being behind a fence. So I would think the animal can’t reach them, yet they still run away. I guess it was the only safe way to film an angry wolf, and they didn’t bother or couldn’t afford the technology to edit out the fence in post production.
I don’t know, I just thought it was weird.
Wolf Muser as Klingmann. I remembered him as a bad guy in an episode of MacGyver.
The person to win a year of therapy for his OCD: Harald Übergrau! Every time someone leaves his office, he turns the little globe on his desk. There must be a one inch indentation there already. I’ll also give him the prize for spending the most time at the hairdresser. Yes, even more than Gabe himself. I used to think he resembled our crown prince Filip, though that could just be me.
And finally we reach the lodge. I just love Xaver! Did you know the guy’s a
yoga instructor, as well as a writer of
children’s books?
Von Glower. We’ll see plenty more of him. I still remember watching “Independence Day” and there’s this one second shot of a Russian reporter on the tv news when the ufo’s reach the major cities, very bad quality, but I immediately recognized Peter Lucas. Must be the hair.
The others in the lodge:
Richard Raynesford (Von Zell) has this Gordon Ramsey thing going on. Atttitude and all. He just finished a new horror movie, “Psychosis”, but I don’t know what kind of part he has in it.
Clement von Franckenstein (Von Aigner) has appeared in many movies and tv shows. I saw him once after playing the game for the first time, but I don’t remember where. He played a German as well, I believe.
Edmund L. Shaff (Hennemann) is the dolt of the company, it seems. Impressive resumé as well, though, and he even appeared in recent shows as “Mad Men” and “Desperate Housewives”.
Clabe Hartley (Preiss) always freaked me out here. Never liked this character, and never understood why he was actually there.
